CM to hold meeting with community Durga puja committees on 31 July
The Statesman | 27 July 2025
Chief minister Mamata Banerjee will meet community Durga Puja committees on 31 July at the Netaji Indoor Stadium (NIS) and announce the amount of the grant to the organisers.
The Durga Puja festival is scheduled during the end of September this year.
In 2024, Miss Banerjee had announced a hike in the honorarium for community Durga Pujas, increasing it to Rs 85,000 per Puja committee from Rs 70,000 in 2023 with an assurance of Rs one lakh each in 2025.
This time, the chief minister may hike the grant amount, some officials at the state secretariat felt.
Besides the chief minister and her cabinet colleagues, the state chief secretary, home secretary, commissioner of police and director general of police will attend the meeting. Senior officials of the fire and emergency services department, health department, Kolkata Municipal Corporation, CESC and representatives of other utility services will attend the meeting.
Representatives of around 40,000 community Puja organisers will also participate in the NIS meet. Different religious communities have also been asked to send their representatives to attend the meeting where she may give some guidelines on how keep common regular services starting from drinking water, public transport, healthcare facilities, law and order etc normal during the festival.
In a bid to save Ganga from pollution, collections and disposals of idol structures immediately after immersions will also be discussed in the event.
The ghats, where immersions are done are illuminated and the KMC provides facilities needed for smooth immersion.
Durga Puja has received the Intangible Heritage Tag by UNESCO. Over the past few years, the state government has organized the Puja Carnival both in Kolkata and districts where the best Puja organizers take part in a procession on the way to immersing the idol in river Hooghly.
The honorarium given to over 40,000 community Durga Pujas last year cost the state exchequer more than Rs 340 crore.
Several community Puja organisers had rejected the state government honorarium as a mark of protest in the aftermath of brutal rape and murder of a female resident doctor at s state-run RG Kar Medical College and Hospital on 9 August in 2024.